Clues to a Reunion
by aehawthorne
Summary: In spite of what Dinah had told him, William didn't believe that Felicity was dead. Couldn't believe it, because she'd left those clues for him for a reason, and she couldn't have done that if she were dead. Left with few- or really any- other options, William followed those clues through the streets and hidden pathways of Star City, to a reunion twenty years overdue.


"Felicity Smoak is dead," Dinah told him, voice solemn. William could see in her eyes that she believed it, but he didn't. He couldn't. There was no way he'd lost the only parent he had left and was only just hearing about it now.

"No," he said. "No, she's not. I would know if she were. Someone would have told me. She's out there somewhere. She left clues for me to follow. I just have to find them."

"William-" someone began. He couldn't tell if the person who'd spoken was Dinah or Zoe.

"I would know if Felicity were dead!" he shouted, interrupting whoever it was before they could finish their sentence. He knew that he sounded hysterical, but he didn't care.

"William!" Roy said, suddenly and sharply. His voice cut through the panic building inside of him. He took a deep breath and managed to calm himself.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Roy asked when he turned his attention to him. William nodded and followed him off to the side, out of earshot of the others.

"Look, I know what you're going to say-" he started to say.

"Listen, I believe you, alright?" Roy interjected. William faltered.

"You do?" he asked.

"Of course," Roy replied. "Your dad once survived being impaled on a sword and then kicked off a cliff. If Felicity is even half as resilient as he is- and you and I both know that she is- I'm sure she survived whatever it is that supposedly happened to her. You Queens aren't so easy to kill." William nodded.

"The question is," Roy went on, "where would she go if she needed everyone to think she was dead? Where would she hide where no one would find her or even think to look for her there?"

"Not the bunker," William said, thinking out loud. "It was compromised by Diaz's people a long time ago."

"Not the Foundry, either," Roy supplied. "It was ransacked by the SCPD oh, about twenty-three years ago now? At any rate, she wouldn't go _there_."

"So where does that leave us?" William asked. Roy shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "Felicity left those clues for you to find. You tell me." William closed his eyes, as if that would help him concentrate. He racked his brain, trying to recall all the stories Felicity had told him about working with his dad, searching for anything, even the tiniest detail, that might help him find her now.

"I think I've got it!" he exclaimed when the answer he'd been looking for sprang suddenly from the depths of his memory. "My dad built a secondary facility back when he was still using the Foundry, in case it was ever compromised. Felicity and Uncle Dig found him there after my grandmother died."

"You mean after she was murdered by Slade Wilson," Roy pointed out gruffly.

"Yes. That." William replied.

"That's great," Roy said. "But what good does it do us? I mean, I don't know where it is. Do you?"

"I do," William replied, nodding. Now that it was on his mind, he wondered why he hadn't thought of it far sooner. "Felicity and my dad told me how to find it, said it was somewhere I could go if I was in danger and needed somewhere to hide. They said it was secure because they and Uncle Dig were the only people who knew it existed.

"That's great," Roy said. "So let's go."

"Shouldn't we tell Dinah and Zoe?" William asked, glancing over at them.

"Why?" Roy asked. "Felicity left those clues for _you._ When she wants them to know, I'm sure she'll find a way to tell them."

"Fair point," William said. "Still, we should at least tell them that we're leaving." Roy didn't argue.

"So, did you two have a nice chat?" Dinah asked when they returned. She sounded suspicious, though not quite openly hostile. William could tell that she knew they were keeping something from her. It pained him to do it, but Roy was right. If Felicity wanted her to know that she was alive, she would tell her.

"Yes," he said without a hint of irony. "And I really hate to do it, but we have to go now. Thank you for telling me about-about Felicity." He allowed his voice to break just a little on his stepmother's name. It wasn't like he was _trying_ to sell the idea that he believed she was dead, but that little break in his voice didn't hurt it either. "I'm glad I know, now. That I don't have to wonder anymore."

"You're welcome," Dinah said, softening. "Good luck out there. Whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you find it."

"You and me both," William muttered as he and Roy left her and Zoe behind. "You and me both."

"It's a good thing you're not in your Arsenal get-up," William remarked to Roy as they trekked through the streets, heading toward the Glades. "Otherwise we'd have to worry about being arrested even _more_ than we already do."

"Yeah, yeah," Roy grumbled. "Can we just get to where we're going already?"

"I'm going as fast as I can," William replied. "The streets have changed a lot since I was last here. Not to mention that I have to figure out which of the hidden entrances on Felicity's map is going to let us out closest to where we're going." Roy muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but followed after William without further protest.

When they neared the Glades and the wall that Dinah had told them about, William paused, taking a moment to superimpose his mental image of Felicity's map over the Glades and where he remembered the secondary facility being.

"It's this way," he said to Roy, jerking his head to the left. He crept along the wall, Roy following on his heels. Before long, he found what he was looking for- the entrance to an old maintenance tunnel, one that ran under the wall and straight into the Glades. If William had calculated correctly, it would let out about two blocks from the building in which his dad's old secondary facility was located.

He eyed the entrance of the tunnel, gaping wide and black like an open maw, and the remains of grate that had once covered it, long since rusted away.

"I don't know how deep this goes," he said, "so there's a chance we might end up sloshing through sewer water again. Sorry." Roy grimaced, but said, "Whatever. It's better than getting caught by the cops without Dinah around to save our asses this time." William allowed himself a small smile at the remark, and together the two of them headed into the tunnel.

William lost track of how long they walked in the cold damp blackness of the tunnel, but eventually he began to sense an upward incline under his feet. Shortly after that, they came to the end of the tunnel. The grate on this end of it was still intact, but William could see where it was rusted through in spots. A few well-placed kicks, and it came free with a loud crash that he hoped there was no one around to hear. Roy shot him an irritated glance as he passed him on the way out of the tunnel.

"It's not like I had any control over the noise it made," William muttered as he followed after him. If he heard him, he didn't respond.

"Which way now?" Roy asked when they emerged onto the street, this time within the bounds of the wall around the Glades. William scanned the buildings around them, then pointed toward the northeast and set off. They walked in silence for the next two blocks, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. It would be immediately obvious to anyone they encountered that they didn't belong here.

When they reached their destination, William felt a sinking sensation in his stomach when he found the door locked with a chain threaded through the latch and secured with a padlock. Nothing he could hack or break into. He swore under his breath, frustrated at having come so close to his goal, only to be blocked from obtaining it at the very last moment.

"What's wrong?" Roy asked.

"The door's locked," William growled. "And not with anything electronic, which means I can't break into the lock. Why would Felicity leave that trail of clues for me to follow here and then prevent me from getting in?!"

"I don't think Felicity had anything to do with that," Roy said in a calming tone, nodding to the padlock and chain on the door. "Just calm down and think about this for a second. Use that big brain of yours. Electronic locks can be hacked into, right?"

"Yeah," William said.

"Ok, and the cops wouldn't want anyone being able to get in where they're not supposed to be and undermine their control of the Glades, right?" Roy asked.

"Right," William agreed.

"So they probably replaced any electronic locks they found with regular old locks and chains," Roy said. "Now, the Foundry had a side entrance that led out into the alley next to the building. Do you think maybe this building has got one too?"

"Let's find out," William said, and ducked around the side of the building immediately spotting a door set into the wall, just as Roy suggested there might be. He ran over to it, feeling a rush of relief when he saw that it had a keypad lock, unlike the door on the front of the building. It was the work of a few minutes to figure out the passcode, and he was rewarded by the familiar _buzz-click_ of the lock disengaging. He waited only a few minutes to make sure Roy was behind him before plunging into the darkness of the apparently empty building.

"I'll wait here and let you go on ahead alone," Roy said when they spotted the stairs leading down into even deeper darkness. "This is… this is your moment, not mine." William nodded, swallowed nervously, and made his way toward the stairs.

"Hello?" he called out as he descended them. "Felicity?"

"Who's there?" came the response. The voice was ragged and creaky with age, but it was definitely Felicity's. It hit William like a punch in the gut, bringing tears to his eyes.

"It's me," he managed, reaching the bottom of the stairs. "It's William."

"William?" Felicity asked, and suddenly the room was flooded with light when someone somewhere flipped a switch.

"William!" Felicity cried, rounding the corner. William had only a moment to take in his first view of his stepmother in twenty years before she was running toward him and enveloping him in her embrace. In the moment it took him to recover his breath from their collision, he realized that she was sobbing into his shoulder.

"The last time I saw you I was taller than you," she said hoarsely. It seemed an inconsequential detail to focus on, until William realized that she'd chosen to focus on it because she hadn't yet found the words with which to say what she _really_ wanted to say. It was a deflection tactic William was well familiar with. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd learned it from Felicity.

"I'm so sorry that you've been alone all this time," Felicity whispered, drawing William's focus back to the present. "I know you must have felt like we abandoned you, and-"

"It's okay," William interjected. It wasn't, not really, but it didn't really matter right now. They'd have plenty of time to talk about it later. After a moment, he asked "Wait, what do you mean 'we'? Aren't you alone down here?"

"Felicity?" a voice called out, as if in answer. William's heart squeezed in his chest. That was his father's voice- ragged with the passage of time, just like Felicity's, but no less recognizable. "What's going on? Who's there?"

"It's William," Felicity answered, her voice choked in a way that suggested that she was about to start crying again. "He found us, just like I said he would." A moment later, over Felicity's shoulder, William saw his father coming toward them. He walked with a slight limp, putting most of his weight on his right leg- probably to avoid aggravating the old injury in his left knee- and his shoulders were bent from the weight of so many years long past. His sandy brown hair had turned grey, and his face was creased with wrinkles, but despite being marked by the ravages of time he was still very much the father that William remembered.

"William," he whispered when he reached them. In his voice was awe and joy and pain and something that William didn't know how to name. "You're here." Tears glimmered in his eyes, which were just as bright blue as they had always been. William wasn't sure how to respond, or if he was even supposed to. He closed his eyes against the tide of memories threatening to overwhelm him and managed to say, "Yeah, Dad. I'm here. I followed the clues that Felicity left." His father huffed out a laugh at that, still in awe of his wife's intelligence and skill even after all of these years, and wrapped his arms around them, William and Felicity both, pulling them close to him. In that moment, being held by his parents for the first time in twenty years, William realized- they hadn't abandoned him. They'd been waiting for him.


End file.
